Thursday, May 1, 2014

NTT, Alcatel-Lucent Japan Ltd. and Fujitsu will jointly demonstrate Virtual Network Platform as a Service (VNPaaS) to ETSI's NFV ISG.

The Virtual Network Platform as a Service (VNPaaS) is one of the use cases defined by ETSI NFV ISG. The platform framework can be used for developing, deploying and administering applications on the virtualised network. Alcatel-Lucent supplied its CloudBand NFV solution for this project. Fujitsu is supplying middleware that is capable of offering stateful VNF.

The demonstration will be presented at the Bankoku Shinryokan Resort MICE Facility on May 14, 2014.

CertiVox, a start-up based in London, raised US$8 million in Series B funding from NTT DOCOMO Ventures and current investors Octopus Investments.

CertiVox provides password-less, two-factor authentication without tokens. Its M-Pin is a software-only solution, ideally suited for smart devices and does not require the presence of any third party authentication device. M-Pin can be embedded into software, hardware and can leverage Trusted Platform Modules (TPM) to provide the most secure strong authentication available to any application on any device.

The investment by NTT DOCOMO Ventures is its first in Europe, signifying the innovation and strength of CertiVox’s technology and its breakthrough potential to solve current problems in online authentication systems. Taken together with the company’s Seed and Series A financings, CertiVox has raised $17 Million to date.

CenturyLink announced major price cuts for its cloud services, including Cloud CPU, RAM, and block storage. The company says a typical CenturyLink Cloud VM will cost at least 60% less with the new pricing. Customers without contracts will see the new pricing effective immediately.

CenturyLink is also allowing its cloud customers to purchase various levels of Technical Cloud Service Engineering support.

Nutanix, a start-up based in San Jose, California, introduced a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) management program that lets customers purchase advanced web-scale infrastructure per desktop, and de-risk their VDI investment through a VDI Assurance pricing option.

Nutanix said its program addresses the concern that purchasing traditional server and storage infrastructure for VDI is complicated and can undermine user experience when not properly sized or designed. The company believes that cloud-based DaaS (desktop as a service) offerings to will struggle to match the security and long-term total cost of ownership (TCO) of on-premise solutions.

The Nutanix Per Desktop Program enables enterprises to purchase and deploy desktop infrastructure as a predictable, public cloud-like service.

In January 2014, Nutanix closed $101 million in Series D financing co-led by Riverwood Capital and SAP Ventures.

The company, which is based in San Jose, California, said it has exceeded $100 million in lifetime sales and acquired 13 customers who have purchased more than $1 million of products within two years of launching its Virtual Computing Platform. Customers include eBay, McKesson, Toyota, Orange Business Services and Hyundai Hysco.

The Nutanix Virtual Computing Platform is a converged infrastructure solution that consolidates the compute (server) tier and the storage tier into a single, integrated appliance.

Cisco Investments, the corporate venture capital arm of Cisco, has allocated an additional $150 million over the next two to three years to fund early-stage companies in the following areas: big data and analytics; the Internet of Things (IoT); connected mobility; storage; silicon; the content technology ecosystem; and India innovation.

As part of this program, Cisco announced three minority investments in IoT accelerators and startups Alchemist Accelerator, Ayla Networks and EVRYTHNG.

"Our ability to identify and stay ahead of market disruptions is deeply rooted in our build, buy, partner and integrate approach to innovation," said Hilton Romanski, senior vice president, Cisco Corporate Development. "We gain valuable insight and an understanding of market trends through equity investments in young and interesting companies who are leading the way through new market disruptions. Our investments in Alchemist Accelerator, Ayla Networks and EVRYTHNG align with our focus on early-stage innovation and companies focused on the Internet of Things."

In its first quarterly report as a public company, A10 Networks reported Q1 2014 revenue of $45.7 million, up 55% year over year. GAAP net loss was $5.1 million compared with a net loss of $8.5 million in the first quarter of 2013.

“The first quarter was a strong start to the year for A10 Networks, and we are very pleased with our results,” said Lee Chen, president and chief executive officer of A10 Networks. “In our first quarter as a public company, we achieved our third consecutive quarter of record revenue, grew revenue 55 percent year-over-year and added 200 new customers.

Akamai Technologies posted Q1 2014 revenue of $454 million, a 23% increase over first quarter 2013 revenue of $368 million. GAAP net income for the first quarter of 2014 was $73 million, or $0.40 per diluted share, a 9% decrease from the prior quarter's GAAP net income of $80 million, or $0.44 per diluted share, and a 2% increase over first quarter 2013 GAAP net income of $71 million, or $0.39 per diluted share.
"Our first quarter results demonstrated continued momentum across all our solution offerings and geographies, driven by traffic acceleration in Media Delivery Solutions and strong traction across our Security portfolio," said Tom Leighton, CEO of Akamai. "We believe that our unparalleled technology for optimizing and securing the delivery of online content and business applications, along with our continued investments across the business, enable us to provide more value to our customers than ever before."